To Protect
by The Mouse of Anon
Summary: Just a look at the thoughts of a lone gargoyle... one shot.


Disclaimer: I own absolutely none of the Gargoyles characters, nor anything having to do with them, save for this story. There, ya happy? DON'T SUE! Besides, I don't have much you'd want anyway.  
  
Author's Note: Wow, my very first Gargoyles fic! Don't ask me where this came from, I don't particularly know. This little plot bunny just snuck up on me and I had to write this, soooooooooo... yeah. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the fic and C&C is welcome, so feel free to review! And if you feel like leaving me a flame *shrugs*, go ahead, it'll help keep me warm this winter. Now on with the fic!  
  
Gargoyles protect. That's what every gargoyle, from hatching, to death, learns and knows as a truth. I knew that as well as my brother did, before our clan split up. Before he joined Goliath's clan all those centuries ago. I sit here on a nearby building, watching as he sleeps. As they all sleep. Gargoyles protect. Funny, if I were malicious enough I could kill my twin in his sleep. None of the rest of that clan even knows he was born one of the few sets of gargoyle twins.  
He is my brother more surely than any other gargoyle and while my last words to him were bitter, I do still love him as any true brother should. I would never wish upon him pain, torture, loss, or the horrors this life has inflicted. Yet as I sit here awake in the daylight, watching as he sleeps as few other gargoyles can, I know he would react in anger. Maybe even in hatred were he awake and saw me. Gargoyles protect.  
Sometimes though I contemplate our differences, however small. In body shape we look almost identical. Even though I am a little shorter, a little leaner, even though my beak is shorter and I have a second set of smaller horns, even though our colors are drastically different; it is thus. I also contemplate on that I was born a day-walker and he was not. How could that be? We came from the same egg, so how could we be that different?  
Also I am more outspoken, but something of a loner. I like to be forward with problems. He speaks when he has something to say or when he's relaxed and casual. He's also more polite. If you were to look at just my skin color and my hair (ignoring the white stripe), you'd be more inclined to think that I'm related to Demona. My red hair is brighter than hers, more reminiscent of fire, and my blue skin is a couple of shades darker than hers. Which is really ironic since I knew nothing of her until after I awoke from the centuries-long stone sleep.  
Though how the spell affected me when I was nowhere near Scotland when the spell was cast on Goliath's clan I do not know. Maybe it's because my brother and I are twins. After all, magic does strange things. Be that as it may, I did not awaken until after my brother did I'm sure. And yes, I can go into stone sleep. I only do so when I'm in deepest sleep though. Yet another difference between he and I.  
Why do I sit here, perched on this building like I am, watching my brother? Maybe it's because I have no clan and I miss him. Do I miss my brother? Even though he and I each told the other that we never wanted to see each other again? Yes. Yes, I miss him. I miss the days back in Germany where he and I would joke back and forth. Where we could talk about anything. Where sometimes we would fall asleep sitting side by side. Where he and I became co-leaders of our clan. Where we took our names before he discarded his and we split up. Gargoyles protect.  
There are times when I watch him sleep where I just yearn to perch next to him as I once did. Sometimes I also watch his night flights. He looks exactly as he did when we parted, but with less anger. I miss my brother. I miss my twin. I miss the days when we were Blitz and Krieg, the twin gargoyles who headed a clan of outcasts. He has a new name though. He has a different life. I am pretty sure he thinks I am dead, or he does not think on me.  
Or if he does I wonder if it is of happy memories or bitter ones. If bitter I know he thinks of the events leading up to our split and the split itself. After all, our clan was slowly being hunted down and exterminated. Even despite my best efforts during the day. My thoughts had been that we should first try to talk to the humans to get them to stop. If they didn't I felt we should stay put and fight for our right to live. My brother wanted us to flee to safer territories.  
Gargoyles protect, and yet we could barely protect ourselves. He and I got to rashly blaming each other when our numbers dwindled to twelve, and we came to bitter words. The fight hurt, the anger hurt, the split hurt. He said that I would have us all die, and I said that he would have us be spineless cowards to run whenever things got hard. It was cruel to say and I regret it to this day. It was when he said in purest anger that he never wanted to see me again that my inner pain and damnable pride got in the way.  
It was because of that that we split. What is worse is that we gargoyles believe that when twins are born they are two halves of a whole. One is never complete without the other. So not only was I carrying the knowledge of my inner turmoil, I was carrying the knowledge that I had hurt my twin. That was something which hurt me more than anything else. Added to that I knew that the rest of our clan would split off and join up with other clans, that our clan would be no more, and my torment was complete.  
I cried and screamed in sorrow and rage before I fell asleep for two months straight. During that time I slept so poorly I could not go into stone sleep. I also starved from lack of help on hunting, and I was ill frequently. It took me that long before I got over some of my pain and started accepting help from one of my old human friends. Gargoyles protect, and yet for the years in which I have been free of the centuries-long stone sleep I had no one to protect me.  
How good can a protector be with no one to protect them, sometimes from themselves? Not that effective, I can tell you that. For the longest time I wandered with no real purpose to my life. I was hollow, like an empty shell, wasted of all emotion. It was when I helped others, when I protected others, that I got back some of my purpose. Yet that never got rid of the ache for my missing brother.  
Now that I see him and watch him day after day and the occasional night, sometimes the ache is dulled. Other times it increases tenfold so that my eyes are blurry with tears. Don't get me wrong, I would love to fly wingtip to wingtip with my twin and play air tag as we used to, but I am also afraid. I am afraid that his hate and anger might burn so brightly still that he would not hesitate to chase me off. So I sit and watch and just flat out deal with my emotional pain.  
During the day though I can get closer. I can be with him without my twin even knowing it. It's during the day as I watch him sleep that I can protect him. And at night as he wakes up and I whisper "good night Krieg" I know that I might be safe. That he is safe. That my twin brother, Brooklyn, can protect himself and others. Just as I protect him in the day. Because gargoyles protect.  
  
-The End- 


End file.
